'Twas pity nature brought ye forth But you are lovely leaves, where we THE LINNET. R. Licholl. THE songs of nature, holiest, best are they! The streams' soft whispers, as they fondly stray Is thine poured forth from hedge and thicket dim, Linnet-wild linnet! The poor, the scorned and lowly, forth may go Into the woods and dells where leaves are green And 'mong the breathing forest flowers may lean, And hear thy music wandering to and fro, Like sunshine glancing o'er the summer scene. Thou, poor man's songster-neither wealth nor power! Can match the sweetness thou around dost throw; Oh, bless thee for the joy of many an hour! In sombre forest, gray and melancholy, Of blossoms, and in hedge-rows green and lowly, love; Like some lone hermit far from sin and folly, 'Tis thine through forest fragrances to rove, Linnet-wild linnet! Some humble heart is sore and sick with grief, And straight thou comest with thy gentle song, To wile the sufferer from his hate or wrong, By bringing nature's love to his relief. Thou charmest by the sick child's window long, Till racking pain itself be wooed to sleep; And when away have vanished flower and leaf Thy lonely wailing voice for them doth weep, Linnet-wild linnet! God saw how much of woe, and grief, and care, Man's faults and follies on the earth would make, And the sweet singer for his creature's sake, He sent to warble wildly everywhere, And by thy voice our souls to love to wake. Oh, blessed wandering spirit! unto thee Pure hearts are knit as unto things too fair, And good and beautiful of earth to be, Linnet-wild linnet! PRECEPTS OF FLOWERS. FLOWERS of the field, how meet ye seem Teach this, and oh! though brief your reign, Go, form a monitory wreath For youth's unthinking brow, Go, and to busy mankind breathe What most he fears to know; Go, strew the path where age doth tread, But whilst to thoughtless ones and gay Oh ye weave a double spell, And death and life betoken well. Go then, where, wrapt in fear and gloom, And softly speak, nor speak in vain, And say that He who from the dust His mercy and His power; Will mark where sleep their peaceful clay THE POOR MAN SPEAKETH ABOUT TREES. From Verses by a Poor Man. How pleasant the waving trees, That grows beside the church, And those tall linden trees, whose boughs Over their cold low bed. The firs that crown the lofty hills O yes! they seem to me to point The alder tree grows near some stream, The silky catkins oft we took Delighted from the twig, In childish days and climbed for them, We filled our little pockets full, The country people make sweet wine, |